In this type of printing apparatus, a sheet entrance and exit port for entrance and exit of a statement sheet and a passbook entrance and exit port for entrance and exit of a passbook are disposed up and down on the front side. The statement sheet inserted from the sheet entrance and exit port is conveyed to a print section along a sheet conveyance path, and the passbook inserted from the passbook entrance and exit port is conveyed to the print section along a passbook conveyance path.
The statement sheet or the passbook conveyed to the print section is printed by a dot head (serial head). The printed statement sheet or passbook is reversely sent and is sent out from the sheet entrance and exit port or the passbook entrance and exit port (see, for example, JP-A-2003-176065).
In the print section, a head movement path is provided along a direction orthogonal to the conveyance direction of the statement sheet or the passbook, and the dot head is moved along the head movement path. That is, the dot head is moved from one end side of the head movement path and reaches the other end side after printing is performed.
The one end side of the head movement path is an area where the dot head speeds up the movement speed, a halfway part is a constant speed area where it moves at constant speed, and the other end side is an area where the movement speed is slowed down.
When the dot head prints in the speed-up area or the slow-down area, a printed character is expanded or contracted, and accordingly, printing is performed in the constant speed area.
As stated above, since the dot head prints in the constant speed area, there is a problem that a statement sheet wider than the constant speed area (printing area) can not be printed.
Incidentally, when the constant speed area (printing area) of the dot head is made close to the whole width of the apparatus body, the wide statement sheet can be printed.
However, in this case, there arises a problem that the apparatus body must be enlarged by the speed-up area and the slow-down area at both sides of the printing area.
On the other hand, hitherto, since both the statement sheet and the passbook are printed by the dot head having a low resolution, there is a problem that the print of the statement sheet is soiled.
Then, it is conceivable that a sheet conveyance path is connected to the upstream side of the passbook conveyance path to form one line conveyance system, a thermal head having a high resolution is provided in the sheet conveyance path and the dot head is provided in the passbook conveyance path.
That is, the statement sheet is printed by the thermal head, and then is discharged from the sheet conveyance path through the passbook conveyance path.
However, in this method, since the dot head is positioned at the downstream side of the statement sheet in the conveyance direction, when the passbook is printed by the dot head, the discharge of the statement sheet is delayed until the printing of the passbook is completed, and there is a disadvantage that the processing efficiency is poor.